Listen to the Message that God is sending your way, House of Israel. Listen most carefully: “Don’t take the godless nations as your models. Don’t be impressed by their glamour and glitz, no matter how much they’re impressed. The religion of these peoples is nothing but smoke. An idol is nothing but a tree chopped down, then shaped by a woodsman’s ax. They trim it with tinsel and balls, use hammer and nails to keep it upright. It’s like a scarecrow in a cabbage patch—can’t talk! Deadwood that has to be carried—can’t walk! Don’t be impressed by such stuff. It’s useless for either good or evil.”
Jeremiah 2:4The MessageHear God’s Message, House of Jacob! Yes, you—House of Israel! God’s Message: “What did your ancestors find fault with in me that they drifted so far from me, Took up with Sir Windbag and turned into windbags themselves? It never occurred to them to say, ‘Where’s God, the God who got us out of Egypt, Who took care of us through thick and thin, those rough-and-tumble wilderness years of parched deserts and death valleys, A land that no one who enters comes out of, a cruel, inhospitable land?’ See the chapter |
14 Cross References
Then I said, Listen. Listen carefully: Don’t stay stuck in your ways! It’s God’s Message we’re dealing with here. Let your lives glow bright before God before he turns out the lights, Before you trip and fall on the dark mountain paths. The light you always took for granted will go out and the world will turn black. If you people won’t listen, I’ll go off by myself and weep over you, Weep because of your stubborn arrogance, bitter, bitter tears, Rivers of tears from my eyes, because God’s sheep will end up in exile. * * *
“Say, ‘Listen to God’s Word, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem! This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. I’m about to bring doom crashing down on this place. Oh, and will ears ever ring! Doom—because they’ve walked off and left me, and made this place strange by worshiping strange gods, gods never heard of by them, their parents, or the old kings of Judah. Doom—because they have massacred innocent people. Doom—because they’ve built altars to that no-god Baal, and burned their own children alive in the fire as offerings to Baal, an atrocity I never ordered, never so much as hinted at!
“‘But listen, O Zedekiah king of Judah, to the rest of the Message of God. You won’t be killed. You’ll die a peaceful death. They will honor you with funeral rites as they honored your ancestors, the kings who preceded you. They will properly mourn your death, weeping, “Master, master!” This is a solemn promise. God’s Decree.’”
Attention all Israelites! God’s Message! God indicts the whole population: “No one is faithful. No one loves. No one knows the first thing about God. All this cussing and lying and killing, theft and loose sex, sheer anarchy, one murder after another! And because of all this, the very land itself weeps and everything in it is grief-stricken— animals in the fields and birds on the wing, even the fish in the sea are listless, lifeless. * * *
Advertisements